Hey, all! Just registered last night. Excited to be on here with all of you.

A couple quick questions:

* What brand(s) of LSAT study book do you recommend?

* Which types of questions on the LSAT would it be most productive to focus on studying?

* I was terrified when I looked at some of the sample logic questions (i.e. gigantic paragraph describing 5 roller coaster cars and several people and you had to deduce which person was in which car). While I've been trained in philosophy, logic stuff like this throws me for a loop. Plus, my dad told me last night that when he took the LSAT, he didn't study and still made it in the top 99% or so. What are the chances I could study and study from now until September and still walk away with an embarrassing score? (The analytical stuff I seem to do a lot better with.)

Buy the PowerScore Bibles for logic games and logical reasoning, the "10 Actual" series books and as many preptests as possible, preferrably the most modern ones available. You can get all this on Amazon or the LSAC Web site.

It's good to hear it's not an "either you get it or you don't" thing. My parents were 37 when they had me (I'm 23 now) so my father was most certainly taking a different variation of the LSAT--I just wasn't sure how much it had changed.

OP, "either you get it or you don't" is as has been mentioned, completely and utterly untrue. Yes, your natural abilities will come into play, but by properly preparing (check out the stickied threads in this forum) you can significantly raise your score.

And I'd say logic games are probably the section out of the three that is most susceptible to preparation. The games may look like Greek to you know, but with proper practice you should be able to know exactly what to expect.

There are really a very limited number of question and answer types - study adequately and you'll see.

I dunno if you have been visiting the site for a while, but welcome to TLS! You will definitely find everything you need to know about LSAT prep here, either directly or indirectly.

So to answer your questions...

PowerScore is without a doubt the best prep material you can buy. Pick up both the Logic Games Bible and the Logical Reasoning Bible. The Reading Comprehension Bible does not come as highly recommended, but I have heard it is not bad. Other than these books, you just need a lot of prep tests, which can be purchased through LSAC or Amazon.com.

You need to focus on the test as a whole. Do some problems, some timed sections, and then a practice test or two. By then, you should have a rough idea of your strengths and weaknesses, and you can go from there. Don't sweat the logic games - it is incredibly common for it to go from a test taker's weakest section to their strongest with practice. You just need to do a lot of them. Get your hands on every single game you can, make copies, and do them over and over. These are basically free points so you need to take advantage of them.

I can't tell you what the test was like when your dad took it, if he has any natural ability, if any of that natural ability has been passed on to you, or having natural ability even helps that much on the LSAT. What I can tell, however, is that the LSAT is very, very learnable. Study hard and study correctly, and you WILL see results. It is well worth your time and effort to do some research into study methods (you can find all kinds of stuff on here alone). Try different things and see what works for you, and don't get discouraged.